Shouldn't the Education Authorities listen MORE to parents of children with special needs?

Question

why does it take an MP's intervention, newspaper articles, & 2 years of 'stress' before they do actually DO what there supposed to do, which is to consider the needs of the child, not the needs of there budget?

Answer 1

Firstly Heidi, congratulations on winning your battle to find an appropriate school for your son.

But to be honest (I'm waiting for the thumbs down now!) you know that the education authorities are going to put their budget first for the simple reason that there are not enough suitable school places for our children.

it shouldn't be a difficult process but it is, Educational Psychologists don't seem to be mentioned that frequently but I believe they have a lot to answer for, they are often behind the suggestions for unsuitable schools and they may make their recommendations after only seeing the child for a short period of time.

I agree that you know what is best for your child, same as I know what is best for mine but there are a h**l of a lot of us out there and the budget does have to be taken into account.

My daughter is not autistic but has a multiple disability which affects her physically and mentally, she is happily settled at college at the moment but that situation may change soon.

I have already been told that because of her age that the Education Authority are not obliged to help her with further education AT ALL..and there is nothing we can do about it. Even the organisations set up to help parents of special needs kids only seem to be interested if the child is under 16 so you can imagine how we feel.

Autism is obviously widespread and with more and more diagnoses, there will be more competition for school places but please spare a thought for those of us whose kids are not autistic but also have special needs, particularly when the condition is not "flavour of the month" as we are often pushed to the bottom of the pile and forgotten.

Answer 2

I don't know why, honestly.  I do know, however, that there *ARE* several people within special education that are FANTASTIC people and who DO abide by the laws and implement IEP's appropriately.  I work in a cooperative, and the special ed staff at all 5 of the buildings I've been at have been wonderful, and even the administration seems to put the needs of the children first.  So I think that yes, there are certainly people who have a horrible time, but that indeed there *ARE* people whose experience has been a good one.

Answer 3

No, You already get a higher teacher/student ratio.

Answer 4

I'm with you on that one.  My daughter is severe ADHD, she needs a lot of prompting, but the school won't give her a teacher's aid.  THey just want to say she's lazy and that I'm not working with her enough at home to get her up to snuff on her spelling and math (skills that most ADHD kids are horrible at).  When she has someone at her elbow giving her prompts, she does a lot better at focusing, but heaven forbid they give her an aide.  It took them over a year, and my going outside of the school to have her tested by a PhD. Ed. Psych., before they finally tested her for learning difficulties in writing and spelling.  She is over a year behind in spelling skills they by their testing, the PhD. Ed. Psych said 2 years.  Finally they brought in new 'professional' who today looked at the results of the testing the school did a couple of weeks ago, and finally said what I'd been speculating for nearly 3 years---that she may have a speech association problem and should be assessed by a speech pathologist.  This after I had mentioned in 3 different meetings the problems she had had with certain spelling groups/phonetic sets when I was teaching her 2 years ago.

Answer 5

no they dont. PARENTS NEED TO LISTEN TO EDUCATION AUTHORITIES. parents with special needs thing they know everything. listen to the experts they know whats best for them because they have been doing it longer than you think. yo baby children with disabilities too much. and parents abuse it

Answer 6

Can I ask you, how do you think the parent of the child who has been pushed back onto the waiting list & deprived of their place feels right now?  And every parent who thought they were one step closer to getting their child into Market Fields?  

Essex Authority handed you the perfect weapon to bludgeon them into submission when they issued your child's Final Statement.  When you saw that they'd named the mainstream school, did you appeal to SENDIST?  When you received the last Final Amended Statement, did you appeal to SENDIST when they still refused to name the school you wanted?    

The Authority doesn't just have to consider your child, they have the needs of hundreds of children to consider.  Most Authorities budgets are blown five minutes after they received their new allocation of funding in the new financial year and it's probably cheaper to have your child in a special school then a mainstream school.  There are autistic children who are successfully managed & educated with a high allocation of support in mainstream schools and there are mainstream schools that choose not to cope.  

Authorities have to consider all children, with all of their various needs, they can't focus on one specific group to the exclusion of all others.

Answer 7

I can't believe the other answers you have received!

In response to your question, I do agree that it is often an  unnecessarily difficult process, particularly for those with children diagnosed on the autistic spectrum.

My son is now twenty-five and I still see parents having to fight the same battles we had twenty years ago!

I hope things work out for you and your son.

Answer 8

The reason is, there is NO enforcement to make schools do right. The state dept of education for each state (or whatever this is called in UK)  is suppose to make schools follow the laws and do right, but they don't because if they did, THEY would not get money, either.

Don't let them LIE to you and say they DON"T have the money. Every year ALL states send money BACK to the federal gov't because they DON"T use it for special ed!!!

scroll down this page to see HOW MUCH MONEY they give back!!!

http://www.wrightslaw.com/heath/oped.fed...

I had dealings with state dept of education and although the school CLEARLY violated laws, the state was on their side!

People in the education field are the ONLY people in the USA who are EXEMT from following federal laws.

Anyone else who violates these laws get sent to PRISON and/or pay FINES.

WE as TAXPAYERS pay these horrible people their  PAYCHECK to do this to OUR CHILDREN!!

The FUTURE of our COUNTRY are in the hands of these SORRY PEOPLE and look what they are doing to them!!

I have heard some teachers say that schools have meetings to LEARN how to VIOLATE laws, how to CHEAT and intimidate parents and do all they can to NOT help them thru special ed!

A while back I saw a book on Amazon.com about this very thing. I wish I could remember the name of it.

Some parents file mediation, state complaints, due process hearings in court, etc and even THIS does NOT HELP!

Oh sure, the school will get a slap on the wrist and are told to 'do right'  but then they go back to doing wrong even after the parent has paid out thousands of dollars for a lawyer!

Some schools even take parents all the way up to the SUPREME COURT to get out of helping the child!

They could have used this money just to go ahead and help the child.

It's funny how they HAVE money to GET OUT OF helping the children, but they DONO"T have enough MONEY to HELP THE CHILD!!

I would LOVE to hear from ANY school employee on this topic.  

I get thumbs down all the time, but all you have to do is go to wrightslaw.com and read all about the CORRUPTION of special ed in schools all across the USA.

THANK GOD FOR HOMESCHOOL !!!!!!!!!!

Answer 9

Absolutely, you know your child better then any "expert" out there.  

I always told the parents of my students that we are on a trike - the parents are pushing one back wheel, the teacher/school is pushing the other back wheel, and the student is in control of the pedals and steering.  We all have to work together to achieve anything.

Schools are definitely concerned with their bottom line and parents of students with special needs frequently need to fight the school the get what their children need.  Just because you are asking for something your child needs does not mean you are babying them, you are just doing what every parent should do for their children.  I know from experience that sometimes schools cannot find the specialists to hire that they need for the students and schools hate to pay outside experts to deliver the services because it costs them more.

Keep fighting for your child!

Answer 10

Because they are trying to educate children with special needs on the cheap. They call it inclusion I call it penny pinching.

You say they don't listen to parents, well they don't listen to teachers either.

The educational psychologist for my school can explain away everything and anything with psychological mumbo jumbo. I sometimes wonder if they get their pay docked if they recommend a child goes to a special school.